Development economists are paid to look into the future. They ask not only how things work today, but also how a new policy, program, or project will make them work tomorrow. They view the world and history as a learning process, past and present are just inputs into thinking about what's...

With decentralization and urbanization, the debts of state and local governments and of quasi-public agencies have grown in importance. Rapid urbanization in developing countries requires large-scale infrastructure financing to help absorb influxes of rural populations. Borrowing enables state...

This note studies the long-run impacts of policies aimed at fostering gender equality on economic growth in Brazil. After a brief review of gender issues in Brazil, this note describes a framework for quantifying the growth effects of gender-based policies in developing economies. The analysis...

This paper studies the existence of middle-income growth traps in a two-period overlapping generations model of economic growth with two types of labor and endogenous occupational choices. It also distinguishes between"basic"and"advanced"infrastructure, with the latter promoting design...